Magical musical musings care of the marvellous John Matthews.

Seefeel were one of my favourite bands from the early 1990s who successfully merged indie shoegaze rock with futuristic electronic production techniques. They created familiar guitar-based music, but made it sound fresh and exciting by adding effects and ambient soundscapes to produce an immersive noise that was totally unique. To my ears the influence of their early recordings can still be heard today when I listen to recent music by Ghost Dubs, Jah Wobble, Death in Vegas and Froid Dub.

Pure, Impure is a re-release of Seefeel’s Polyfusia compilation, which adds an additional track, a previously unheard demo version of Moodswing, and new artwork. Only ever available on CD, Polyfusia collected the band’s first three EPs – Plainsong, More Like Space and Time To Find Me – from 1993. 

The music is psychedelic, hypnotic, repetitive and absorbing. It’s mainly instrumental  but occasionally the band add male or female vocals, which are either wordless or indecipherable. Everything is held together by deep brooding dub bass lines that work their way slowly into your subconscious and that often, as in my case, re-emerge when you are least expecting them. The overall effect can make the listener feel somewhat woozy and disorientated, but that just adds to the idiosyncratic quality of the music. 

The opening track More Like Space begins with a  psychedelic whirring before deep dubby bass and an offbeat drum kick in. Both give the track an almost post-punk feel. Then a fragmented whispered vocal is added, a female falsetto. A humming. Next up, Time to Find Me (Come Inside) has a gentle metallic beat, a wailing, repetitive, choral vocal and squeals of feedback. It feels more like the chanting of a meditation mantra than a song. Come Alive reminds me of a less rocky, more psychedelic Killing Joke, and Blue Easy Sleep features a fantastic slow deep B-line, tinny drums – that seem to be being played with brushes – and that seminal ENO / Bowie wailing guitar sound. Plainsong, which also features on Seefeel’s excellent debut album Quique (see footnote), is a 7-minute psychedelic masterpiece, with a repetitive backwards guitar riff, reminiscent of Can, whilst the beat of Minky Starshine rolls like a high speed train rushing along its tracks. The album also features two brilliant remixes of Time To Find Me by the Aphex Twin, under his AFX moniker. The Fast mix is a classic Aphex raw, funky Lo-Fi production. The Slow mix boasts purposefully plodding bass and tribal drumming. 

Although Pure, Impure is a compilation the tracks work and flow extremely well together, giving the collection the overall feel of a really strong debut album. Fortunately, in reality, that album was to follow but the music contained here still sounds relevant and exciting today, some 30 years later, and is therefore great place to start your discovery of Seefeel’s wonderful back catalogue. 

Footnote: Seefeel’s excellent debut album Quique was re-released in March 2025 in an expanded (Redux) version and is also very much worth investigating.

Seefeel’s Pure, Impure can be ordered directly from Beggars Arkive UK.